Tag: Testing

American Lung Association urges school radon testing
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The American Lung Association is urging K-12 schools to prioritize indoor air quality and to test for radon, the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.

The naturally occurring, odorless, tasteless and colorless radioactive gas can accumulate indoors, entering through cracks in floors, walls and foundations. The only way to determine if a facility has elevated radon levels is through testing, according to the organization. “There is no known safe level of radon exposure,” it says.

“Radon … can accumulate inside schools without anyone knowing,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, said in a statement. “The good news is that testing for radon is simple and affordable — and schools can take action to fix the problem if levels are high.”

Young children are especially vulnerable to indoor air pollutants like radon because they spend more time indoors and breathe more air relative to their body size than adults, according to a working paper by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

ALA recommends short-term, charcoal-based radon test kits. In its announcement, it shares two national standards facility managers can follow:
- The Radon Mitigation Standards for Schools and Large Buildings (RMS-LB 2018), released jointly by the American National Standards Institute and the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists. The standards address specialized techniques and quality assurance processes to mitigate radon in buildings with complicated designs and specialized airflow, which is typical of schools.
- The Radon in Schools standards, developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recommend that building operators take action if radon levels are at 4.0 picocuries per liter or higher and consider taking action if levels are as low as 2.0 pCi/L.
ALA also recommends a school radon testing guide the Minnesota Department of Health developed.

HVAC status

To assess radon levels during normal conditions, testing must take place while the building’s HVAC system is running, the ALA says in a fact sheet. For the most accurate test results, HVAC maintenance and filter changes must be current, it says.

If testing finds radon levels under 4.0 pCi/L, schools don’t need to test again for five years, according to the ALA fact sheet. But changes that affect the school HVAC system or changes to the building foundation or the surrounding soil could warrant sooner testing because those events can affect radon levels, the organization says.

Many states offer training for school facility managers on how to conduct radon testing, or schools can hire licensed professionals to conduct the tests, according to National Radon Proficiency Program information.

The EPA requires states that are receiving indoor radon grants to maintain and provide the public with a list of radon testing service providers credentialed through their own state programs or through two national radon proficiency programs.
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August 22, 2025
Eliminating Testing Requirements Can Boost Student Diversity

Some colleges have changed their standardized test policies in recent years.

The percentage of underrepresented minority students increased in some cases after universities stopped requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores, according to a study published Monday in the American Sociological Review.

The findings come in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted many colleges and universities to rethink their testing policies; some went test-optional or test-blind while others doubled down. But starting long before the pandemic, critics have argued that consideration of standardized test scores often advantages white and wealthier applicants.

The study examined admissions patterns at 1,528 colleges between 2003 and 2019. During the 16-year time frame, 217 of those colleges (14.2 percent) eliminated standardized testing requirements. But researchers found that simply eliminating testing requirements didn’t guarantee a more diverse student body.

The institutions that eliminated the requirements but still gave significant weight to test scores during the application process didn’t increase their enrollment of underrepresented students in the three years after the change. However, colleges that reduced the weight of test scores showed a 2 percent increase in underrepresented student enrollment.

Additionally, researchers found that increases in minority student representation were less likely at test-optional colleges that were also dealing with financial or enrollment-related pressures.

Greta Hsu, co-author of the paper and a professor at the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management, said in a news release that “although test-optional admissions policies are often adopted with the assumption that they will broaden access to underrepresented minority groups,” their effectiveness depends “on existing admissions values and institutional priorities at the university.”

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August 12, 2025
If we are serious about improving student outcomes, we can’t treat teacher retention as an afterthought

In the race to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss, education leaders have overlooked one of the most powerful tools already at their disposal: experienced teachers.

For decades, a myth has persisted in education policy circles that after their first few years on the job, teachers stop improving. This belief has undercut efforts to retain seasoned educators, with many policymakers and administrators treating veteran teachers as replaceable cogs rather than irreplaceable assets.

But that myth doesn’t hold up. The evidence tells a different story: Teachers don’t hit a plateau after year five. While their growth may slow, it doesn’t stop. In the right environments — with collaborative colleagues, supportive administrators and stable classroom assignments — teachers can keep getting better well into their second decade in the classroom.

This insight couldn’t come at a more critical time. As schools work to accelerate post-pandemic learning recovery, especially for the most vulnerable students, they need all the instructional expertise they can muster.

That means not just recruiting new teachers but keeping their best educators in the classroom and giving them the support they need to thrive.

Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

In a new review of 23 longitudinal studies conducted by the Learning Policy Institute and published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, all but one of the studies showed that teachers generally improve significantly during their first five years. The research review also found continued, albeit slower, improvement well into years 6 through 15; several of the studies found improvement into later years of teaching, though at a diminished pace.

These gains translate into measurable benefits for students: higher test scores, fewer disciplinary issues, reduced absenteeism and increased postsecondary attainment. In North Carolina, for example, students with highly experienced English teachers learned more and were substantially less likely to skip school and more likely to enjoy reading. These effects were strongest for students who were most at risk of falling behind.

While experience helps all teachers improve, we’re currently failing to build that experience where it’s needed most. Schools serving large populations of low-income Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be staffed primarily by early career teachers.

And unfortunately, they’re also more likely to see those teachers leave after just a few years. This churn makes it nearly impossible to build a stable, experienced workforce in high-need schools.

It also robs novice teachers of the veteran mentors who could help them get better faster and robs students of the opportunity to learn from seasoned educators who have refined their craft over time.

To fix this, we need to address both sides of the equation: helping teachers improve and keeping them in the classrooms that need them most.

Research points to several conditions that support continued teacher growth. Beginning teachers are more likely to stay and improve if they have had high-quality preparation and mentoring. Teaching is not a solo sport. Educators who work alongside more experienced peers improve faster, especially in the early years.

Teachers also improve more when they’re able to teach the same grade level or subject year after year. Unfortunately, those in under-resourced schools are more likely to be shuffled around, undermining their ability to build expertise.

Perhaps most importantly, schools that have strong leadership and which foster time for collaboration and a culture of professional trust see greater gains in teacher retention over time.

Teachers who feel supported by their administrators, who collaborate with a team that shares their mission and who aren’t constantly switching subjects or grade levels are far more likely to stay in the profession.

Pay matters too, especially in high-need schools where working conditions are toughest. But incentives alone aren’t enough. Short-term bonuses can attract teachers, but they won’t keep them if the work environment drives them away.

Related: One state radically boosted new teacher pay – and upset a lot of teachers

If we’re serious about improving student outcomes, especially in the wake of the pandemic, we have to stop treating teacher retention as an afterthought. That means retooling our policies to reflect what the research now clearly shows: experience matters, and it can be cultivated.

Policymakers should invest in high-quality teacher preparation and mentoring programs, particularly in high-need schools. They should create conditions that promote teacher stability and collaboration, such as protected planning time and consistent teaching assignments.

Principals must be trained not just as managers, but as instructional leaders capable of building strong school cultures. And state and district leaders must consider meaningful financial incentives and other supports to retain experienced teachers in the classrooms that need them most.

With the right support, teachers can keep getting better. In this moment of learning recovery, a key to success is keeping teachers in schools and consciously supporting their growing effectiveness.

Linda Darling-Hammond is founding president and chief knowledge officer at the Learning Policy Institute. Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and an executive editor of Education Next.

Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

This story about teacher retention was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

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July 28, 2025
Why English language testing matters for UK higher education

The UK is at a pivotal moment when it comes to the English language tests it uses to help decide who can enter the country to study, work, invest and innovate. 

The government’s new industrial strategy offers a vision for supporting high-value and high-growth sectors. These sectors – from advanced manufacturing and creative industries, to life sciences, clean energy and digital – will fuel the UK’s future growth and productivity. All of them need to attract global talent, and to have a strong talent pipeline, particularly from UK universities.

This summer’s immigration white paper set out plans for new English language requirements across a broader range of immigration routes. It comes as the Home Office intends to introduce a new English language test to provide a secure and robust assessment of the skills of those seeking to study and work in the UK.

In this context, the UK faces a challenge: can we choose to raise standards and security in English tests while removing barriers for innovators?

The answer has to be ‘yes’. To achieve, as the industrial strategy puts it, “the security the country needs… while shaping markets for innovation,” will take vision. That clearly needs government, universities and employers to align security and growth. There are no short-cuts if we are serious about both. 

The sectors that will power the industrial strategy – most notably in higher education, research and innovation – are also those most boxed in by competing pressures. These pressures include the imperative to attract world-class talent and the need to show that those they help bring to the country are well-qualified.

But these pressures do not have to box us in. We need not compromise on security or growth. We can achieve both.

Getting English testing right is a critical part of the solution. That means putting quality and integrity first. We should demand world-class security and safeguards – drawing on the most sophisticated combination of human and artificial intelligence. It also means deploying proven innovations – those that have been shown to work in other countries, like Australia and Canada, that have adjusted their immigration requirements while achieving talent-led growth.

Decision-making around English language testing needs to be driven by evidence – especially at a time of flux. And findings from multiple studies tells us that those students who take high-quality and in-depth tests demonstrate greater academic resilience and performance. When it comes to high-stake exams, we should be setting the highest expectations for test-takers so they can thrive in the rapidly changing economy that the country is aspiring to build.

The government and high-growth sectors, including higher education, have an opportunity to grow public confidence, prioritise quality and attain sustainable growth if we get this right.

Decision-making around English language testing needs to be driven by evidence – especially at a time of flux

International students at UK universities contribute £42 billion a year to the economy. (As an aside, the English language teaching sector – a thriving British export industry – is worth an additional £2 billion a year, supporting 40,000 jobs.) Almost one-in-five NHS staff come from outside the UK.

More than a third of the UK’s fastest-growing startups have at least one immigrant co-founder. Such contributions from overseas talent are indispensable to the country’s future success – and the industrial strategy’s “focus on getting the world’s brightest minds to relocate to the UK” is smart.

At Cambridge, we help deliver IELTS, the world’s most trusted English test. Over the decades, we’ve learned that quality, security and innovation reinforce one another. It’s why we draw on our constantly evolving knowledge of linguistics to make sure our tests assess the real-life language skills people use in actual academic and professional environments.

Technological innovations and human intelligence must be central to the test-taking experience: from content creation to exam supervision to results delivery. Having one without the other would be reckless.  

We should deploy the latest data science and AI advances to spot risks, pinpoint potential fraud, and act intelligently to guarantee a system that’s fair for all. IELTS draws on proven AI and data science developments to prevent fraud and improve the information available to institutions like universities, businesses and UKVI. 

As the government takes its industrial strategy, immigration reforms and English testing changes forward, it’s vital that departments coordinate on the shared opportunities, and tap into the best evidence available. 

This is complex work. It requires a collaborative spirit, creative thinking and deep expertise. Fortunately, the UK has plenty of that.

About the author: Pamela Baxter is managing director, IELTS at Cambridge University Press & Assessment

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July 11, 2025
Release of NAEP science scores

UPDATE: After this story was published, the Education Department issued a press release Monday afternoon, July 7, announcing that Matthew Soldner will serve as acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, in addition to his role as acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences. The job of statistics chief had been vacant since March and had prevented the release of assessment results.

The repercussions from the decimation of staff at the Education Department keep coming. Last week, the fallout led to a delay in releasing results from a national science test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is best known for tests that track reading and math achievement but includes other subjects, too. In early 2024, when the main reading and math tests were administered, there was also a science section for eighth graders.

The board that oversees NAEP had announced at its May meeting that it planned to release the science results in June. But that month has since come and gone.

Why the delay? There is no commissioner of education statistics to sign off on the score report, a requirement before it is released, according to five current and former officials who are familiar with the release of NAEP scores, but asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press or feared retaliation.

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

Peggy Carr, a Biden administration appointee, was dismissed as the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics in February, two years before the end of her six-year term set by Congress. Chris Chapman was named acting commissioner, but he was fired in March, along with half the employees at the Education Department. The role has remained vacant since.

A spokesman for the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, said the science scores will be released later this summer, but denied that the lack of a commissioner is the obstacle. “The report building is proceeding so the naming of a commissioner is not a bureaucratic hold-up to its progress,” Stephaan Harris said by email.

The delay matters. Education policymakers have been keen to learn if science achievement had held steady after the pandemic or tumbled along with reading and math. (Those reading and math scores were released in January.)

The Trump administration has vowed to dismantle the Education Department and did not respond to an emailed question about when a new commissioner would be appointed.

Related: Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3

Researchers hang onto data

Keeping up with administration policy can be head-spinning these days. Education researchers were notified in March that they would have to relinquish federal data they were using for their studies. (The department shares restricted datasets, which can include personally identifiable information about students, with approved researchers.)

But researchers learned on June 30 that the department had changed its mind and decided not to terminate this remote access.

Lawyers who are suing the Trump administration on behalf of education researchers heralded this about-face as a “big win.” Researchers can now finish projects in progress.

Still, researchers don’t have a way of publishing or presenting papers that use this data. Since the mass firings in mid-March, there is no one remaining inside the Education Department to review their papers for any inadvertent disclosure of student data, a required step before public release. And there is no process at the moment for researchers to request data access for future studies.

“While ED’s change-of-heart regarding remote access is welcome,” said Adam Pulver of Public Citizen Litigation Group, “other vital services provided by the Institute of Education Sciences have been senselessly, illogically halted without consideration of the impact on the nation’s educational researchers and the education community more broadly. We will continue to press ahead with our case as to the other arbitrarily canceled programs.”

Pulver is the lead attorney for one of three suits fighting the Education Department’s termination of research and statistics activities. Judges in the District of Columbia and Maryland have denied researchers a preliminary injunction to restore the research and data cuts. But the Maryland case is now fast-tracked and the court has asked the Trump administration to produce an administrative record of its decision-making process by July 11. (See this previous story for more background on the court cases.)

Related: Education researchers sue Trump administration, testing executive power

Some NSF grants restored in California

Just as the Education Department is quietly restarting some activities that DOGE killed, so is the National Science Foundation (NSF). The federal science agency posted on its website that it had reinstated 114 awards to 45 institutions as of June 30. NSF said it was doing so to comply with a federal court order to reinstate awards to all University of California researchers. It was unclear how many of these research projects concerned education, one of the major areas that NSF funds.

Researchers and universities outside the University of California system are hoping for the same reversal. In June, the largest professional organization of education researchers, the American Educational Research Association, joined forces with a large coalition of organizations and institutions in filing a legal challenge to the mass termination of grants by the NSF. Education grants were especially hard hit in a series of cuts in April and May. Democracy Forward, a public interest law firm, is spearheading this case.

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

This story about delaying the NAEP science score report was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

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July 7, 2025
Using Technology to Restore Trust in Testing
- Francesca Woodward is Group Managing Director for English at Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
Anyone who has ever taken English language tests to advance in their studies or work knows how important it is to have confidence in their accuracy, fairness and transparency.

Trust is fundamental to English proficiency tests. But at a time of digital disruption, with remote testing on the rise and AI tools evolving rapidly, the integrity of English language testing is under pressure.

Applied proportionally and ethically, technology can boost our trust in the exam process –adapting flexibly to test-takers’ skill levels, for instance, or allowing quicker marking and delivery of results. The indiscriminate use of technology, however, is likely to have unintended and undesirable consequences.

Technology is not the problem. Overreliance on technology can be. A case in point is the shift to remote language testing that removes substantial human supervision from the process.

During the pandemic, many educational institutions and test providers were forced to move to online-only delivery. Universities and employers adapted to the exceptional circumstances by recognising results from some of those newer and untried providers.

The consequences of rushed digital adoption are becoming clear. Students arriving at UK universities after passing newer at-home tests have been found to be poorly equipped, relative to their peers – and more prone to academic misconduct. Students were simply not being set up to succeed.

Some new at-home tests have since been de-recognised by universities amid reports that they have enabled fraud in the UK. Elsewhere, students have been paying proxies to sit online exams remotely. Online, videos explaining how to cheat on some of the newer tests have become ubiquitous.

So how can universities mitigate against these risks, while ensuring that genuine test-takers thrive academically?

When it comes to teaching and learning a language – as well as assessing a learner’s proficiency – human expertise cannot be replaced. This is clear to experts – including researchers at Cambridge, which has been delivering innovation in language learning and testing for more than a century.

Cambridge is one of the forces behind IELTS, the world’s most trusted English test. We also deliver Cambridge English Qualifications, Linguaskill and other major assessments. Our experience tells us that people must play a critical role at every step of teaching, assessment and qualification.

While some may be excited by the prospect of an “AI-first” model of testing, we should pursue the best of both worlds – human oversight prioritised and empowered by AI. This means, for instance, human-proctored tests delivered in test centres that use tried and proven tech tools.

In language testing – particularly high-stakes language testing, such as for university or immigration purposes – one size does not fit all. While an online test taken at home may be suitable and even secure for some situations for some learners, others prefer or need to be assessed in test centres, where help is on hand and the technology can be consistently relied upon. For test-takers and universities, choice and flexibility are crucial.

Cambridge has been using and experimenting with AI for decades. We know in some circumstances that AI can be transformative in improving users’ experience. For the highest stakes assessments, innovation alone is no alternative to real human teaching, learning and understanding. And the higher the stakes, the more important human oversight becomes.

The sector must reaffirm its commitment to quality, rigour and fairness in English language testing. This means resisting shortcuts and challenging providers that are all too ready to compromise on standards. It means investing in human expertise. It means using technology to enhance, not undermine, trust.

This is not the time to “move fast and break things”. Every test provider, every university and every policymaker must play their part.
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June 20, 2025
Education researchers sue Trump administration, testing executive power
UPDATE: The hearing scheduled for May 9 has been postponed until May 16 at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The court will hear two similar motions at the same time and consider whether to temporarily restore the cuts to research and data collections and bring back fired federal workers at the Education Department. More details on the underlying cases in the article below.

Some of the biggest names in education research — who often oppose each other in scholarly and policy debates — are now united in their desire to fight the cuts to data and scientific studies at the U.S. Department of Education.

The roster includes both Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the first head of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) who initiated studies for private school vouchers, and Sean Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist who studies inequity in education. They are just two of the dozens of scholars who have submitted declarations to the courts against the department and Secretary Linda McMahon. They describe how their work has been harmed and argue that the cuts will devastate education research.

Professional organizations representing the scholars are asking the courts to restore terminated research and data and reverse mass firings at the Institute of Education Sciences, the division that collects data on students and schools, awards research grants, highlights effective practices and measures student achievement.

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

Three major suits were filed last month in U.S. federal courts, each brought by two different professional organizations. The six groups are the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME). The American Educational Research Association alone represents 25,000 researchers and there is considerable overlap in membership among the professional associations.

Prominent left-wing and progressive legal organizations spearheaded the suits and are representing the associations. They are Public Citizen, Democracy Forward and the Legal Defense Fund, which was originally founded by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) but is an independent legal organization. Allison Scharfstein, an attorney for the Legal Defense Fund, said education data is critical to documenting educational disparities and improve education for Black and Hispanic students. “We know that the data is needed for educational equity,” Scharfstein said.

Related: Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3

Officers at the research associations described the complex calculations in suing the government, mindful that many of them work at universities that are under attack by the Trump administration and that its members are worried about retaliation.

“A situation like this requires a bit of a leap of faith,” said Elizabeth Tipton, president of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and a statistician at Northwestern University. “We were reminded that we are the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, and that this is an existential threat. If the destruction that we see continues, we won’t exist, and our members won’t exist. This kind of research won’t exist. And so the board ultimately decided that the tradeoffs were in our favor, in the sense that whether we won or we lost, that we had to stand up for this.”

The three suits are similar in that they all contend that the Trump administration exceeded its executive authority by eliminating activities Congress requires by law. Private citizens or organizations are generally barred from suing the federal government, which enjoys legal protection known as “sovereign immunity.” But under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, private organizations can ask the courts to intervene when executive agencies have acted arbitrarily, capriciously and not in accordance with the law. The suits point out, for example, that the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 specifically requires the Education Department to operate Regional Education Laboratories and conduct longitudinal and special data collections, activities that the Education Department eliminated in February among a mass cancelation of projects.

Related: DOGE’s death blow to education studies

The suits argue that it is impossible for the Education Department to carry out its congressionally required duties, such as the awarding of grants to study and identify effective teaching practices, after the March firing of almost 90 percent of the IES staff and the suspension of panels to review grant proposals. The research organizations argue that their members and the field of education research will be irreparably harmed.

Of immediate concern are two June deadlines. Beginning June 1, researchers are scheduled to lose remote access to restricted datasets, which can include personally identifiable information about students. The suits contend that loss harms the ability of researchers to finish projects in progress and plan future studies. The researchers say they are also unable to publish or present studies that use this data because there is no one remaining inside the Education Department to review their papers for any inadvertent disclosure of student data.

The second concern is that the termination of more than 1,300 Education Department employees will become final by June 10. Technically, these employees have been on administrative leave since March, and lawyers for the education associations are concerned that it will be impossible to rehire these veteran statisticians and research experts for congressionally required tasks.

The suits describe additional worries. Outside contractors are responsible for storing historical datasets because the Education Department doesn’t have its own data warehouse, and researchers are worried about who will maintain this critical data in the months and years ahead now that the contracts have been canceled. Another concern is that the terminated contracts for research and surveys include clauses that will force researchers to delete data about their subjects. “Years of work have gone into these studies,” said Dan McGrath, an attorney at Democracy Forward, who is involved in one of the three suits. “At some point it won’t be possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

Related: Education research takes another hit in latest DOGE attack

In all three of the suits, lawyers have asked the courts for a preliminary injunction to reverse the cuts and firings, temporarily restoring the studies and bringing federal employees back to the Education Department to continue their work while the judges take more time to decide whether the Trump administration exceeded its authority. A first hearing on a temporary injunction is scheduled on Friday in federal district court in Washington.*

A lot of people have been waiting for this. In February, when DOGE first started cutting non-ideological studies and data collections at the Education Department, I wondered why Congress wasn’t protesting that its laws were being ignored. And I was wondering where the research community was. It was so hard to get anyone to talk on the record. Now these suits, combined with Harvard University’s resistance to the Trump administration, show that higher education is finally finding its voice and fighting what it sees as existential threats.

The three suits:
1. Public Citizen suit
Plaintiffs: Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) and the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)

Attorneys: Public Citizen Litigation Group

Defendants: Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the U.S. Department of Education

Date filed: April 4

Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Documents: complaint, Public Citizen press release,

A concern: Data infrastructure. “We want to do all that we can to protect essential data and research infrastructure,” said Michal Kurlaender, president of AEFP and a professor at University of California, Davis.

Status: Public Citizen filed a request for a temporary injunction on April 17 that was accompanied by declarations from researchers on how they and the field of education have been harmed. The Education Department filed a response on April 30. A hearing is scheduled for May 9.
1. Democracy Forward suit
Plaintiffs: American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)

Attorneys: Democracy Forward

Defendants: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Acting Director of the Institute of Education Sciences Matthew Soldner

Date filed: April 14

Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Southern Division

Documents: complaint, Democracy Forward press release, AERA letter to members

A concern: Future research. “IES has been critical to fostering research on what works, and what does not work, and for providing this information to schools so they can best prepare students for their future,” said Ellen Weiss, executive director of SREE. “Our graduate students are stalled in their work and upended in their progress toward a degree. Practitioners and policymakers also suffer great harm as they are left to drive decisions without the benefit of empirical data and high-quality research,” said Felice Levine, executive director of AERA.

Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed April 29, accompanied by declarations from researchers on how their work is harmed.
1. Legal Defense Fund suit
Plaintiffs: National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME)

Attorneys: Legal Defense Fund

Defendants: The U.S. Department of Education and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon

Date filed: April 24

Where: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Documents: complaint, LDF press release

A concern: Data quality. “The law requires not only data access but data quality,” said Andrew Ho, a Harvard University professor of education and former president of the National Council on Measurement in Education. “For 88 years, our organization has upheld standards for valid measurements and the research that depends on these measurements. We do so again today.”

Status: A request for a temporary injunction was filed May 2.*

* Correction: This paragraph was corrected to make clear that lawyers in all three suits have asked the courts to temporarily reverse the research and data cuts and personnel firings. Also, May 9th is a Friday, not a Thursday. We regret the error.

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

This story about Education Department lawsuits was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.
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May 5, 2025
A smaller Nation’s Report Card
As Education Secretary Linda McMahon was busy dismantling her cabinet department, she vowed to preserve one thing: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. In early April, she told a gathering of ed tech companies and investors that the national exam was “something we absolutely need to keep,” because it’s a “way that we keep everybody honest” about the truth of how much students across the country actually know.

That was clearly a promise with an asterisk.

Less than two weeks later, on Monday of this week, substantial parts of NAEP came crumbling down when the board that oversees the exam reluctantly voted to kill more than a dozen of the assessments that comprise the Nation’s Report Card over the next seven years.

The main reading and math tests, which are required by Congress, were preserved. But to cut costs in an attempt to appease Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) scrapped a 2029 administration of the Long-Term Trend NAEP, an exam that has tracked student achievement since the 1970s.* Also cut were fourth grade science in 2028, 12th grade science in 2032 and 12th grade history in 2030. Writing assessments, which had been slated for 2032, were canceled entirely. State and local results were also dropped for an assortment of exams. For example, no state-level results will be reported for 12th grade reading and math in 2028, nor will there be district-level results for eighth grade science that year.

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

“These are recommendations that we are making with much pain,” said board chair Beverly Perdue, a former North Carolina governor who was appointed to this leadership role in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term. “None of us want to do this.”

The board didn’t provide an official explanation for its moves. But the vice chair, Martin West, a Harvard professor of education, said in an interview that the cuts were an effort to save the 2026 assessments. “A moment of reckoning came more quickly because of the pressures on the program to reduce expenses in real time,” he said.

In other words, the board was effectively cutting off the patient’s appendages to try to save the brain and the heart. Despite the sacrifice, it’s still not clear that the gambit will work.

Related: Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3

DOGE has been demanding 50 percent cuts to the $190 million a year testing program. Nearly all the work is handled by outside contractors, such as Westat and ETS, and five-year contracts were awarded at the end of 2024. But instead of paying the vendors annually, DOGE has diced the payments into shorter increments, putting pressure on the contractors to accept sharp cuts, according to several former Education Department employees. At the moment, several of the contracts are scheduled to run out of money in May and June, and DOGE’s approval is needed to restart the flow of money. Indeed, DOGE allowed one NAEP contract to run out of funds entirely on March 31, forcing ETS employees to stop work on writing new questions for future exams.

Reading and math tests are scheduled to start being administered in schools in January 2026, and so additional disruptions could derail the main NAEP assessment altogether. NAEP is taken by a sample of 450,000 students who are selected to represent all the fourth and eighth graders in the nation, and each student only takes part of a test. This sampling approach avoids the burden of testing every child in the country, but it requires Education Department contractors to make complicated statistical calculations for the number of test takers and the number of test sections needed to produce valid and reliable results. Contractors must then package the test sections into virtual test booklets for students to take online. The Education Department also must get approval from the federal Office of Management and Budget to begin testing in schools — yet another set of paperwork that is handled by contractors.

A DOGE dilemma

People familiar with the board’s deliberations were concerned that contractors might be pressured to agree to cuts that could harm the quality and the validity of the exam itself. Significant changes to the exam or its administration could make it impossible to compare student achievement with the 2024 results, potentially undermining the whole purpose of the assessment.

Board members were ultimately faced with a dilemma. They could cut corners on the full range of assessments or hope to maintain NAEP’s high quality with a much smaller basket of tests. They chose the latter.

The cuts were designed to comply with congressional mandates. While the Long-Term Trend assessment is required by Congress, the law does not state how frequently it must be administered, and so the governing board has deferred it until 2033. Many testing experts have questioned whether this exam has become redundant now that the main NAEP has a 35-year history of student performance. The board has discussed scrapping this exam since 2017. “The passage of time raises questions about its continued value,” said West.

Related: NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, was supposed to be safe. It’s not

The writing assessments, originally scheduled for 2032 for grades four, eight and 12, needed an overhaul and that would have been an expensive, difficult process especially with current debates over what it means to teach writing in the age of AI.

The loss of state- and district-level results for some exams, such as high school reading and math, were some of the more painful cuts. The ability to compare student achievement across state lines has been one of the most valuable aspects of the NAEP tests because the comparison can provide role models for other states and districts.

Cost cutting

“Everyone agrees that NAEP can be more efficient,” said West, who added that the board has been trying to cut costs for many years. But he said that it is tricky to test changes for future exams without jeopardizing the validity and the quality of the current exam. That dual path can sometimes add costs in the short term.

It was unclear how many millions of dollars the governing board saved with its assessment cancellations Monday, but the savings are certainly less than the 50 percent cut that DOGE is demanding. The biggest driver of the costs is the main NAEP test, which is being preserved. The contracts are awarded by task and not by assessment, and so the contractors have to come back with estimates of how much the cancellation of some exams will affect its expenses. For example, now that fourth grade science isn’t being administered in 2028, no questions need to be written for it. But field staff will still need to go to schools that year to administer tests, including reading and math, which haven’t been cut.

Compare old and new assessment schedules

Outside observers decried the cuts on social media, with one education commentator saying the cancellations were “starting to cut into the muscle.” Science and history, though not mandated by Congress, are important to many. ”We should care about how our schools are teaching students science,” said Allison Socol, who leads preschool to high school policy at EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for equity in education. “Any data point you look at shows that future careers will rely heavily on STEM skills.”

Socol worries that DOGE will not be satisfied with the board’s cuts and demand more. “It’s just so much easier to destroy things than to build them,” she said. “And it’s very easy, once you’ve taken one thing away, to take another one and another one and another one.”

On April 17, the Education Department announced that the 2026 NAEP would proceed as planned. But after mass layoffs in March, it remained unclear if the department has the capacity to oversee the process, since only two employees with NAEP experience are left out of almost 30 who used to work on the test. McMahon might need to rehire some employees to pull it off, but new hiring would contradict the spirit of Trump’s executive order to close the department.

Socol fears that the Trump administration doesn’t really want to measure student achievement. “There is a very clear push from the administration, not just in the education sector, to have a lot less information about how our public institutions are serving the people in this country,” Socol said. “It is a lot easier to ignore inequality if you can’t see it, and that is the point.”

The Education Department did not respond to my questions about their intentions for NAEP. McMahon has been quite forceful in articulating the value of the assessments, but she might not have the final say since DOGE has to approve the NAEP contracts. “What’s very clear is that the office of the secretary does not completely control the DOGE people,” said a person with knowledge of the dynamics inside the Education Department. “McMahon’s views affect DOGE priorities, but McMahon doesn’t have direct control at all.”

The ball is now in DOGE’s court.
Canceled assessments

Long-Term Trend (LTT) assessments in math and reading for 9, 13 and 17 year olds in 2029. (The Education Department previously canceled the 2025 LTT for 17 year olds in February 2025.)

Science: Fourth-grade in 2028, 12th grade in 2032

History: 12th grade in 2030

Writing: Fourth, eighth and 12th grades in 2032

State-level results: 12th grade math and reading in 2028 and 2032, eighth grade history in 2030

District-level results: Eighth-grade science in 2028 and 2032

For more details, refer to the new schedule, adopted in April 2025, and compare with the old, now-defunct schedule from 2023.
*Correction: An earlier version of this sentence incorrectly said that two administrations of the Long-Term Trend NAEP had been scrapped by the governing board on April 21. Only the 2029 administration was canceled by the board. The 2025 Long-Term Trend NAEP for 17 year olds was canceled by the Education Department in February. Nine- and 13-year-old students had already taken it by April.

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

This story about NAEP cuts was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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April 24, 2025
Supreme Court Blocks OSHA Vaccine and Testing ETS and Upholds CMS Healthcare Worker Vaccine Mandate – CUPA-HR

by CUPA-HR | January 14, 2022

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that would mandate vaccines or testing requirements for employers with 100 or more employees, but reinstated enforcement of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)’s mandate that would require COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers working at facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit vacated the 5th Circuit Court’s nationwide emergency motion to stay the OSHA ETS, paving the way for OSHA to continue enforcement of the ETS vaccine and testing requirements. The decision led several business groups and Republican-led states to file emergency applications with the Supreme Court seeking to reinstate the stay. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the OSHA mandate on January 7, leading to the court’s decision to block the vaccine and testing mandate.

Additionally, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the CMS healthcare worker mandate on January 7. They ultimately ruled in favor of allowing the CMS healthcare worker vaccine mandate to take effect while the mandate is being litigated in several U.S. district courts and circuit courts. The CMS mandate was previously stayed in 25 states after four lawsuits were filed against CMS in district courts in Missouri, Louisiana, Florida and Texas.

Though not heard or ruled on by the Supreme Court, the federal contractor vaccine mandate, which requires all federal contractors to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their employees, remains stayed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, which issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the mandate on December 7. The Biden administration has appealed the decision to the 11th Circuit Court, which has since upheld the lower court’s injunction but has not yet ruled on the legal merits of the mandate. Litigation continues for this rule in the 11th Circuit Court.

The Supreme Court’s decisions bring the rules back to the lower courts to continue litigation on their merits; however, the recent decisions do signal how the Supreme Court would likely rule on the merits of the cases if they are once again appealed to the higher court.

CUPA-HR will continue to keep members apprised of any legal updates as they relate to the fate of the OSHA ETS, the CMS healthcare vaccine mandate, and the federal contractor vaccine mandate.

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January 14, 2022
Federal Court Reinstates OSHA Vaccination and Testing ETS – CUPA-HR

by CUPA-HR | December 20, 2021

On December 17, the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals vacated the 5th Circuit Court’s emergency motion to stay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), paving the way for OSHA to continue implementing and enforcing the vaccination and testing requirements for covered employers with 100 or more employees.

The ETS requires covered employers and employees to be fully vaccinated or in compliance with testing requirements by January 4, 2022. The stay, which was granted in November, temporarily halted OSHA from implementing and enforcing the vaccination and testing requirements. While the stay was in place, it was unclear whether or not OSHA would be able to fully implement the ETS by January 4 or any time after.

With the recent decision from the 6th Circuit Court, OSHA now plans to implement the ETS as quickly as possible. To account for the timing uncertainty created by the stay, however, OSHA also has announced that it will not issue non-compliance citations for any of the requirements of the ETS before January 10, 2022, and it will not issue non-compliance citations specifically for the ETS’s testing requirements until February 9, 2022, “so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.” OSHA has also vowed to provide compliance assistance to help employers navigate these new requirements and timelines.

Shortly after the 6th Circuit’s order, a number of groups challenging the ETS filed emergency applications with the Supreme Court seeking to reinstate the stay. Meanwhile, the federal contractor vaccine mandate and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) healthcare worker vaccine mandate remain stayed as litigation continues in several federal courts.

CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of any future legal challenges and decisions made on the OSHA ETS, federal contractor vaccine mandate, and healthcare worker vaccine mandate.

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December 20, 2021